HTC One delayed by manufacturing snafus

Component shortages and poor planning have delayed the launch of the handset.

HTC has delayed the launch of its new Android smartphone because of component shortages, according to the Wall Street Journal. Retailers and carriers have been notified of shipment delays, and Best Buy has even pushed back its initial launch date. The handset was scheduled to debut "around the third week of March."

"We... are working tirelessly with all of our channel partners to ensure that we can fulfill as many orders as possible," said HTC Chief Marketing Officer Benjamin Ho to the Wall Street Journal. "We will start fulfilling pre-orders by the end of March in certain markets and will roll out to more markets as we approach April."

The delays can be attributed to shortages in metal casings and camera parts. One executive told WSJ that HTC has "had difficulty in securing adequate camera components as it is no longer a tier-one customer." The company also had problems forecasting how many components it would need because of last year's sales slump.

HTC originally announced the One at a NYC press event in February. The phone features a 4.7-inch 1080p display, Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean, and a 2300 mAh battery. It also offers an "ultrapixel" camera and the BlinkFeed information service. Consumers were told they could expect the smartphone to arrive sometime in late March.

The HTC One is the company's next attempt to regain market share in the worldwide smartphone wars, though analysts say that these setbacks may just increase the pressure. The longer it takes HTC to launch its flagship handset, the more chances other manufacturers have to get consumers to go with their devices first.

27 Reader Comments

If it slips far enough to let people feel good about waiting for the Sammy GS4, that might be a problem even though I think the One is prettier.

The One doesn't have a lot of must have features from what I have seen, much like the GS4, it feels a bit like a nicely polished iteration compared to previous phones. For someone in the market it will be a nice contender but I don't think it will drive people to upgrade if they aren't already looking pretty hard at that level of phone (because they are eligible for an upgrade or are just getting into a high end smart phone).

It's a pity, because single-OEM dominance of the Android market isn't good for anybody (and I'm saying that as a satisfied Galaxy S3 owner, not as a Samsung hater), and the HTC One really does look like a great phone. I was hoping HTC would have a big hit on their hands with the HTC One to get some more serious competition back in the Android market. This is a rough way to start out though.

It's the price of trying something different, snafus like that. Samsung goes the easy/smart way with its plastic components, at least only the CPUs were a problem. I bet that part of 'not being a tier-one company' must have really hurt but there isn't a great many companies using the same parts now, is there?

If HTC really want to draw more customers (especially power users),it should give the option of disabling Sense completely. Bonus points for providing timely updates especially for such 'vanilla' ROMs as the main reason (well,one of the main ones with the other being carrier certification) given for the delays and occasionally scrapping of android upgrades being Sense having to be coerced into working with 'em.

And...this is why Tim Cook is really who built Apple over the past decade. I think the unwritten implications of this is: Most of the metal aluminum CNC machines needed to make this casing is owned by Foxconn for exclusive use by Apple (being as Apple probably paid for them). Much of the capacity to make components are probably locked up by Apple as well.

Telling that HTC cannot get enough suppliers/capacity for this phone, from companies in their own backyard...

If HTC really want to draw more customers (especially power users),it should give the option of disabling Sense completely. Bonus points for providing timely updates especially for such 'vanilla' ROMs as the main reason (well,one of the main ones with the other being carrier certification) given for the delays and occasionally scrapping of android upgrades being Sense having to be coerced into working with 'em.

Agreed. Once you've used plain Android, Sense is just...well, rubbish. I've had 3 HTC Android phones, and they've all been unnecessarily stuck in the past due to a lack of OS updates, and lagged severely by Sense.

Most recently I put Android 4.1.2 on my HTC One V - a phone HTC couldn't run Jellybean. What they meant to say is the One V couldn't run Jellybean with the overhead of Sense. After putting CM10/4.1.2 on the One V, it was markedly faster than it was running 4.0 with Sense.

It's a pity, because single-OEM dominance of the Android market isn't good for anybody (and I'm saying that as a satisfied Galaxy S3 owner, not as a Samsung hater), and the HTC One really does look like a great phone. I was hoping HTC would have a big hit on their hands with the HTC One to get some more serious competition back in the Android market.

Unless Samsung's leading position induces them to fork Android. Then it will lead to true competition between two distinct platforms: Samsung Android vs Google Android.

Competition among OEMs on the same platform is fine, but over the long run it just devolves into who can make acceptable hardware at the cheapest cost, with little differentiation in quality or features (Exhibit A: the Windows OEM market).

Competition among OEMs on the same platform is fine, but over the long run it just devolves into who can make acceptable hardware at the cheapest cost, with little differentiation in quality or features (Exhibit A: the Windows OEM market).

Considering the Windows OEM market includes everything from an Alienware M18x mobile gaming rig to a Thinkpad Helix convertible tablet to bargain-basement HP netbooks, I don't think your analogy supports your position. Competition between multiple OEMs leads to a multitude of different hardware options. Just look at the variety of different approaches to the specific market of convertible tablets: the Surface Pro, Samsung Ativ Smart PC Pro, Vaio Duo 11, Yoga 13, and XPS 12 all offer dramatically different hardware solutions for the same category of device.

Other than the netbooks, those are all niche players. If you're concerned about the continued existence of niche players, you needn't worry. There is zero chance that Samsung dominates the Android OEM space so completely that there are no other Android OEMs.

Regardless, I maintain that competition between platforms is more meaningful than competition between OEMs. The latter will always exist as long as there are licensed operating systems, but there's only so much you can do with hardware differentiation.

Unless Samsung's leading position induces them to fork Android. Then it will lead to true competition between two distinct platforms: Samsung Android vs Google Android.

Would Google ever be allowed to close-source anything new? Open source is cool and all but I'm not sure why we as consumers deserve it from Google, and certainly don't want to see more of like what happened with the Amazon store.

I can understand it takes extra resources to port an app from iOS to Android, but to have to pay for the same exact code twice would really bother me.

Good question, I've wondered that myself. From a licensing standpoint, I don't see why they couldn't. But it seems very likely that such behavior would trigger intense interest by the FTC, DOJ, or European Commission. It would sure smell like predatory pricing (give it away for free until you establish a market-leading position, and then, once the market is dependent on you, revoke the license and jack up the price.)

Quote:

Open source is cool and all but I'm not sure why we as consumers deserve it from Google, and certainly don't want to see more of like what happened with the Amazon store.

Why not? The Kindle Fire basically forced Google/ASUS to come in at a super low price point on the Nexus 7, and now consumers have a choice in app stores. Isn't that the whole point of competition?

Until some 4 months ago I was a fairly loyal HTC user. The reason I enthusiastically dumped my One X in favour of a Sammy Note 2 was the atrocious battery capacity and poor 3G radio. The latter is entirely an empirical observation but my handset had real trouble connecting to 3G in marginal signal strength conditions - something I hadn't experienced with previous HTC handsets.

I'd love to think that 2300mAh will be enough to run that 1080p for a decent amount of screen on time but based on my previous HTC experiences I have my doubts. Given a One with a suitably giant battery I'd be quite interested.

I'd like a new One only because my N900 is getting a little long in the tooth. Unlocked, as I would never use it as a phone, just as a personal boombox. Lack of an SD slot is a little disappointing but that just means springing for the 64GB model. This is dependent, of course, of how good those speakers are and how good it sounds.

Unless Samsung's leading position induces them to fork Android. Then it will lead to true competition between two distinct platforms: Samsung Android vs Google Android.

Would Google ever be allowed to close-source anything new? Open source is cool and all but I'm not sure why we as consumers deserve it from Google, and certainly don't want to see more of like what happened with the Amazon store.

I can understand it takes extra resources to port an app from iOS to Android, but to have to pay for the same exact code twice would really bother me.

Google can't close source anything in the OS, it's apps it can though. But at the end of the day I doubt Google cares. As long as it still uses Google for search, Play store, maps and such Google is making money.

Unless Samsung's leading position induces them to fork Android. Then it will lead to true competition between two distinct platforms: Samsung Android vs Google Android.

Would Google ever be allowed to close-source anything new? Open source is cool and all but I'm not sure why we as consumers deserve it from Google, and certainly don't want to see more of like what happened with the Amazon store.

I can understand it takes extra resources to port an app from iOS to Android, but to have to pay for the same exact code twice would really bother me.

Google can't close source anything in the OS, it's apps it can though. But at the end of the day I doubt Google cares. As long as it still uses Google for search, Play store, maps and such Google is making money.

But I think HTC needs a google bailout and make the next Nexus.

Google could close source everything but the kernel. The license allows them to do so. They didn't release 3.0 to prevent people from using it on phones. If they couldn't, neither could Amazon. You don't see them posting the source of their OS, do you?

HTC isn't tier one? Wow. What's worse, if you're not tier-one you apparently get much worse service. So the "winningest" companies not only do better because of market momentum, they also get benefits that smaller (not-quite-winningest?) miss out on.

HTC isn't tier one? Wow. What's worse, if you're not tier-one you apparently get much worse service. So the "winningest" companies not only do better because of market momentum, they also get benefits that smaller (not-quite-winningest?) miss out on.

unfortunately that's how it works. when you're dealing with limited supplies in high demand, you tier your customers. You'll still get served but the tier 1 guy who can pay more with larger orders will always get first dibs.

The HTC One has had plenty of reviews at this point. Many comments here seem to reflect that those making the comments have not read the reviews or choose not to believe them. All the reviewers praise the screen and stereo speaker sound. They also indicate that the battery life is equivalent to most other phones in it's class. Also, they indicate that Sense 5 is a major change from the last version so any experience with Sense 4 would not be indicative of how Sense 5 works on the One. It apparently can be pushed aside at the very least.

I would venture to say at this point that the choice between the HTC One vs the Samsung Galaxy S IV is more a matter of selecting between two great phones. It's a matter of what is most important to you feature wise.

Florence Ion / Florence was a former Reviews Editor at Ars, with a focus on Android, gadgets, and essential gear. She received a degree in journalism from San Francisco State University and lives in the Bay Area.